AURORA, Colo. — In a unique legal situation, this city hopes a judge will rule it won’t have to defend a former officer in a civil lawsuit stemming from an alleged attack against a woman in January 2023.
The alleged attack occurred while Douglas Harroun was on administrative leave from the Aurora Police Department because of a separate incident. Court records say he shot a man in the ankle while responding to a domestic violence incident in December 2022.
Investigators said Harroun had no reason to shoot the man, and he was subsequently charged with felony assault.
The next month, in January 2023, and while he was still on administrative leave, Harroun repeatedly punched and then choked a woman in his neighborhood over a dispute about a loose dog, court documents say. Prosecutors charged Harroun with felony assault in the case.
In the wake of the two assault cases, Harroun resigned from the police department; however, he’s still trying to get the city to defend him in a federal lawsuit filed by the woman who was allegedly attacked.
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The woman claims in her lawsuit that Harroun flashed his police badge before he repeatedly punched her in the head and choked her. She has named Harroun and the City of Aurora as defendants.
In an effort to get a judge to dismiss Aurora from the lawsuit, attorneys for the city wrote in court documents that “Harroun had been stripped of his police powers” and he was "was acting outside the scope of his employment” during the encounter with the woman.
The city cites the relatively new Law Enforcement Integrity Act in Colorado, which allows police officers to be held personally liable for excessive force claims.
“He was engaged in criminal activity not condoned by his employer, and Aurora's actions or inactions were not a causal factor in the attack,” attorneys for Aurora wrote.
9NEWS Legal Analyst Whitney Traylor reviewed the documents in the case.
“But this is a unique situation where a law enforcement agency, the Aurora Police Department, is saying, ‘Hey, we are not on the hook,’” Traylor said. “And that’s relevant because we just passed the police accountability bill, which says that an individual officer can be liable.”
Harroun filed his own legal response, claiming he was technically employed at the time of the encounter with the woman and that the city should defend him because of the “Colorado Governmental Immunity Act."
Harroun added in his filing he was “forced to, in good faith, undertake off duty law enforcement action” during the encounter with the woman.
When 9NEWS reached Harroun by phone, he said he didn’t have time to talk about the issue and hung up.
Harroun’s criminal cases are set for trial in May and then in June of this year.
If you have any information about this story or would like to send a news tip, you can contact jeremy@9news.com.
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